The canoe (waka in Māori) traditions or stories describe
the arrival in New Zealand of Māori ancestors from a place
most often called Hawaiki. They also refer to the
construction of canoes, conflicts before departure, voyaging
at sea, landing, inland and coastal exploration, and the
establishment of settlements in new regions.

Readers of published traditions need to be aware that such
accounts are often influenced by the Great Fleet (or Grand
Settlement) theory. According to this theory, the Polynesian
explorer Kupe first discovered New Zealand from Tahiti in 925
AD, and was followed by another explorer, Toi, in 1150; after
this, in 1350, a fleet of seven canoes sailed from Tahiti and
Rarotonga, bringing the ancestors of Māori to New Zealand. In
the 1960s and 1970s research by the historians David Simmons
and Keith Sorrenson proved that this idea was largely false.
Today, as a result of further research including radiocarbon
dating, it is generally accepted that New Zealand was settled
by people from East Polynesia, who set off in different
canoes at different times, with the first canoes arriving
some time in the 1200s.

The myth spreaders

The Great Fleet theory was the result of a collaboration
between the 19th-century ethnologist S. Percy Smith and the
Māori scholar Hoani Te Whatahoro Jury. Smith obtained details
about places in Rarotonga and Tahiti during a visit in 1897,
while Jury provided information about Māori canoes in New
Zealand. Smith then ‘cut and pasted’ his material, combining
several oral traditions into new ones. Their joint work was
published in two books, in which Jury and Smith falsely
attributed much of their information to two 19th-century
tohunga, Moihi
Te Mātorohanga and Nēpia Pōhūhū.

History or mystery: interpreting traditions

The meaning of canoe traditions remains a matter of
debate. Early writers such as Percy Smith tended to treat
them all as historical accounts, on the assumption that the
word ‘waka’ invariably referred to human canoe arrivals from
foreign shores. However, canoe traditions cannot always be
treated so literally, because many contain much that is
symbolic. Some ancestors are said to have been nine feet (2.7
m) tall, while others are said to have flown, swum or
travelled on taniwha (sea monsters) to New Zealand. The
Aoaonui is a poetic image of a canoe transporting
newborn infants into the world, and Rangikēkero and
Rangitōtohu are also metaphorical vessels that
convey the souls of the dead to their final rest in Te Ao
Wairua (the spirit world).

In contrast, some writers including Margaret Orbell have
taken the view that all canoe traditions are religious-poetic
narratives composed simply for reasons of tribal identity.
However, this ignores the evidence that they represent much
that seems to be historical, such as place names and
genealogical coincidences with Polynesian accounts. Historian
James Belich has criticised both of these approaches, arguing
that the while the first tended to see myth too much as
mystery, the second displayed an excessive tendency to see
myth as history. A better conclusion is that canoe traditions
contain both symbolic and historical elements.

Migrations within New Zealand

The anthropologist David Simmons has suggested that many
of the stories might actually describe periods of later
migration by canoe around New Zealand’s coastline. Others,
including Roger Duff and Janet Davidson, have suggested that
original canoe traditions were transported and relocated
several times as people moved from island to island in the
Pacific. The oral accounts might therefore contain
information about several voyages, including distantly
remembered journeys in Polynesia before the colonisation of
New Zealand, arrivals in New Zealand from the tropical
Pacific, and subsequent migrations within New Zealand waters.
Such a proposition might explain the mix of history and
symbolism in the accounts.

Canoe traditions and identity

In later years canoe traditions became important to the
identity of Māori. Whakapapa (genealogical links) back to the
crew of founding canoes served to establish the origins of
tribes, and defined relationships with other tribes. For
example, a number of tribes trace their origin to the
Tainui canoe, while others such as Te Arawa take
their name from a founding canoe. When identifying themselves
on a marae, people
mention their waka first and foremost.

So canoe traditions do not only explain origins. They also
express authority and identity, and define tribal boundaries
and relationships. They merge poetry and politics, history
and myth, fact and legend.